Arachnophobes should avoid the forests of Singapore if Nicky Bay's images are any indication of what's waiting.

For those who dare to explore the gallery above, Bay's pictures of rarely seen spiders from his home country are actually quite beautiful and fascinating. Some look like ants, while others resemble ladybugs and even mirrors.

"In this case, all of the spiders are venomous, but none of them will cause any significant harm to humans," said Bay.

Luckily, like most spiders, the exotic species pictured above would rather run away from people than attack, but Bay said a few were most photogenic when they were spooked. A couple of the spiders he found would arch up in a threatening self-defense pose, which made for better photographs, he mentioned.

Due to Singapore's year-round warm, muggy, tropical conditions, the spiders Bay found are active at night. The colors of the arachnids popped against the black background of dark, giving Bay the unenviable task of wandering the nighttime forest, seeking out these creepy crawlers.

However, Bay says he's happy to accept the sacrifice of making these hair-raising encounters, and has been doing it for more than two years.